The Supplicating Voice

A unique one-volume selection of Samuel Johnson's writings on spiritual and moral topics provides an unusually inspiring portrait of the man and his thought.

Most readers know Dr. Johnson (1709-1784) as the formidable compiler of his famous Dictionary and as the witty conversationalist portrayed in Boswell's Life. By contrast, this book-which draws on little-known unsigned sermons he wrote for hire for clergy friends, his private prayers and devotions, essays, poems, diaries, letters, and even key definitions from the Dictionary-offers a rare opportunity to discover Johnson's rich insight and consoling spirituality gathered in one place. Boswell observed that "He was a sincere and zealous Christian . He was steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of religion and morality; both from a regard for the order of society, and from a veneration for the Great Source of all order." This Vintage Spiritual Classics Original opens a window on the moral universe of the leading English writer of the eighteenth century.